It's not anything that is just perpetuated by White America or just perpetuated by Black America. It's just a cultural understanding that you're just not a part of the equation when it comes to sexuality and I think that people mistake your lack of opportunity with the level of your talent.

I sort of feel like that's the most revolutionary thing we can do with our narrative for me as Black people is to show that we are just like you.

I can't speak for the Kathryn Stockett, but I would guess that she feels proud of the progress the South has made because, growing up, she experienced a very different Mississippi than the one that exists today.

If the opportunity is not out there for you to play it, then you don't see it.

I have been given a lot of roles that are downtrodden, mammy-ish.

You can't be hesitant about who you are.

We know the road of lack of recognition, of people telling us that we can't headline a movie because black women don't translate overseas, that every time we try to break the glass ceiling, people say no, people push back. And it's everything that people don't see out there.